MARISSA MAYER OF YAHOO ANNOUNCES BIRTH OF TWIN DAUGHTERS

Original Story: nytimes.com

Just hours after Marissa Mayer announced a plan to spin off Yahoo’s core Internet business, the chief executive gave birth to identical twin daughters.

“Zack and I are excited to announce that our identical twin girls were born early this morning,” Ms. Mayer said on Twitter on Thursday, referring to her husband, Zachary Bogue. “Our whole family is doing great!” She didn’t disclose any further details.

Congratulatory tweets poured in from well-wishers, including Sundar Pichai, the chief executive of Google, where Ms. Mayer used to work; Satya Nadella, the chief executive of Microsoft; Ellen Pao, the former interim chief executive of Reddit; and Frank Quattrone, a prominent investment banker.

Ms. Mayer had revealed her pregnancy in September, at a time when scrutiny of Yahoo was increasing. She came aboard Yahoo in 2012 from Google to turn around the struggling Internet company, but it remains well behind Alphabet’s Google and Facebook in online advertising and other areas. For more information on the power of Organic SEO, click here.

Yahoo has recently been considering what to do with the valuable 15 percent stake it owns in Alibaba, the Chinese e-commerce company. It had earlier proposed a tax-free spinoff of the shares, but the plan ran into a setback this year when the Internal Revenue Service said it would crack down on such transactions. That prompted Starboard Value, a hedge fund, to pressure Ms. Mayer to sell off Yahoo’s core business instead. Yahoo’s board met last week to consider its options.

On Wednesday, the board announced that Yahoo would pursue a spinoff of its core Internet business, leaving the Alibaba stock in the old company. A Boston M&A lawyer represents clients in contract matters and in business transactions. In an interview on Wednesday, Ms. Mayer said she agreed with the new plan because the old plan “was causing a certain amount of market uncertainty.”

Ms. Mayer and Mr. Bogue also have a three-year-old son, Macallister.

Ms. Mayer, who has hired several people to help her care for her children both at home and when she is traveling, has said she plans to take a “limited time away” for maternity leave and will be “working throughout.”

Yahoo, offers up to eight weeks of paid leave for any Yahoo employee who has a new child, including birth, adoption, foster child placement or surrogacy. Birth mothers can get an additional eight weeks of additional paid leave. An Albany employment lawyer is following this story closely.

THE 'DIRTY LITTLE SECRET' ABOUT GOOGLE'S 20% TIME, ACCORDING TO MARISSA MAYER

Original Story: businessinsider.com

One of Silicon Valley's most famous human-resources policies may not actually exist, according to Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer.

Almost since its beginning, Google has had a well-known policy called "20% time."

Under this policy, employees get to work on whatever personal projects they want during one-fifth of their week — a whole day.

Supposedly, lots of big Google products came out of 20% time. One you've definitely heard of is Gmail.

The 20% time policy is considered so successful at Google that policies like it have spread to several other companies in Silicon Valley, from LinkedIn to Google.

But here's the thing.

It turns out 20% time doesn't really exist at Google. Not according to Mayer, who used to work at Google. A Google SEO Consulting Company can help your business with organic search engine placement.

While doing reporting for my new book, "Marissa Mayer and the Fight to Save Yahoo!" I learned that in the spring of 2013, Mayer stood up on stage during an all-employee meeting at Yahoo and debunked the 20% time myth.

Mayer was announcing something called the CEO Challenge — an initiative where teams that came up with cool new product ideas would get spot bonuses of $250,000. Mayer warned Yahoo employees not to work on CEO Challenge products instead of doing their regular work.

"It’s funny," she said. "People have been asking me since I got here, 'When is Yahoo going to have 20% time?'"

"I’ve got to tell you the dirty little secret of Google’s 20% time. It’s really 120% time."

She said that 20% time projects aren't projects you can do instead of doing your regular job for a whole day every week. It's "stuff that you’ve got to do beyond your regular job."

If you're the kind of person who likes these sorts of inside details, you're the kind of person I wrote my book for, and you should buy a copy — or three dozen for all your friends. Google SEO Services greatly enhance your businesses organic search engine results.

Mayer (Yahoo) Looking for Mobile Growth

Article first appeared on CNBC -

Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer is confident that her company will be able to capitalize on the explosion in mobile communication, saying Yahoo will focus on strong partnerships with Apple, Google and Facebook.

"The nice thing at Yahoo is we have all of the content that people want on their phones. We have these daily habits. Whenever you're dealing with a daily habit, and really providing a lot of value around it,there's an opportunity," Mayer said at the World Economic Forum in Davos,Switzerland on Friday.

"There's really an opportunity for strong partnerships. That's what we'll be focused on. So we work with for example Apple and Google in terms of the operating system. In terms of the social network we have a strong partnership with Facebook," she said.

She played down mobile privacy concerns, saying it would always be "something users should consider."

"But I also think that privacy is always a trade-off. When you give up some of your personal information, you get some functionality in return. It's really about making those trade-offs in a very informed way," she said.